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Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure

Allowing any third-party control of academic matters is inconsistent with principles of academic freedom, shared governance, and the institutional autonomy of colleges and universities. Confucius Institutes function as an arm of the Chinese state and are allowed to ignore these principles.

A report that the University of Illinois has withdrawn a job offer to a professor in response to his controversial comments on Twitter is troubling, say AAUP leaders in a statement released today. If the report is accurate, there is good reason to fear that academic freedom has been violated.

A current threat to academic freedom in the classroom comes from a demand that teachers provide warnings in advance if assigned material contains anything that might trigger difficult emotional responses for students.

The AAUP’s Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure approved a statement in June that called on colleges across the United States and Canada to reconsider their partnerships with Chinese language and culture centers financed by the People’s Republic of China. Known as Confucius Institutes, these centers are subject to considerable oversight from the Chinese government that in some cases places limitations on academic freedom and threatens their scholastic integrity.

"For generations the tenure system has protected the freedom of faculty members to engage in research that challenges hallowed verities and opens up innovative possibilities," says Henry Reichman, chair of the AAUP's Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure. "Nowhere is such freedom more critical than in medicine."

This report questions hasty actions by the administration, procedures followed, and low tolerance for profanity at Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge. This supplementary report on a censured administration is one of only seven such reports issued in the AAUP’s century of existence.